From 6 classrooms under terracotta roof to 2-storey school with studio, VR lab: A Gujarat teacher’s journey

Pathak, now 39, is the only primary school teacher shortlisted from Gujarat for the national award by the Ministry of Education ahead of Teachers’ Day on September 5.

“I worked in an urban area for seven years but wanted to work in a tribal area. Rangpur Government Primary School was a remote school where hardly anyone visited. Today, the Rangpur Government Primary School has emerged as a centre of educational innovation, attracting 2,900 teachers, officers, professors, and educationists from across the  state during the past five years. Visitors have not only appreciated the school’s innovative practices but have also adopted and replicated many of its initiatives in their own institutions,” Pathak told The Indian Express.

In a village with a population of 1982, the school has 274 children enrolled in schools. Of these, 180 are from Rangpur village, the rest from villages around it. Over the years, the school has grown from six rooms to eleven rooms with support from donations totaling Rs 1,48,76,724 received through “public participation”. Apart from the fact that the school’s capacity grew from 171 to 274, in the current academic session it enrolled 14 students from private schools which is the highest in the decade that has seen a total of 71 students migrate to the Rangpur government school.

Vansda, which is a tribal taluka has less than a dozen private schools of which two closed down, says Pathak, a social science teacher and in-charge headmaster of the Rangpur school.

Pathak’s ten-year-old son too studied in the same school from Class I till IV before enrolling in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Vansda this year in Class V. His wife, Dipika , also a government primary school teacher in Vansda is elated by declaration of the award. “It is all possible because of the hard work and combined efforts of Nitinkumar, school staff, students and the villagers,” she says.

To curb dropout rate, the school produced a film on the importance of education which was shared by then Education Minister Kuber Dindor on his official platform. Dindor gave the school the title: The Next Generation Government School.

Located on a hilly, rocky terrain, the school staff overcame the challenge to plant trees, and cover the area now spread over 20,500 sq feet with plants. It went on to add a studio where  students produce a monthly news bulletin covering school activities, anchored by girls, a  7D VR lab, chapter-based QR codes for all subjects in textbooks, tablets and touch screens to study offline, Science Center with 108 working model, computer lab with 45 computers and its own server.

The “news bulletin” that launched in 2018 is shot in Hindi and uploaded on their social media handles.

“Since children knew Gujarati other than their local dialects, Kukani and Dholiya, we chose to issue the news bulletin in Hindi so that students can learn Hindi too,” Pathak says.

Besides eight regular teachers, the school has three experts  – computer and robotics teacher, spoken English teacher and a librarian, all visiting faculty.

“During the vacations in 2019, we worked with the children to create chapter-based QR codes for all subjects and pasted them into the books. This was later implemented across the state by the education department,” said Ketan Solanki, one of the school teachers.

Pathak also developed a Mathematics and Science Calendar for students, containing question-based activities for all 365 days of the year. Since no specific year is printed on the calendar, it can be used continuously for many years. “The regular practice of these Mathematics and Science questions has helped students perform exceptionally well in competitive examinations conducted by the Government of Gujarat. As a result, 89 students have secured merit positions in these examinations during the last three years,” Solanki adds.